I’m giving a talk at 3Dcamp! It’s a themed Barcamp which focuses on … wait for it… 3D stuff.

I’m going to focus on hardware interfacing with 3D environments and I’m tentatively going with the title: ”Wiimote interfacing and how to look stupid while controlling a robot”.

I hope to give an overview of interfacing wiimotes with 3D PC applications such as Google earth and CAD programs, with a little bit of commentary on advantages/disadvantages and alternative physical computing interfaces with emphasis on those from the “maker community”. Followed by a little robotic hardware interface demonstration with wiimotes, camera and video glasses, which is guaranteed to break horribly on the day!

When: Saturday 6th June 2009

Where: Engineering Research Building, University of Limerick

Start & Finish: 10am start, 5pm’ish finish

Topics

• virtual worlds (Second Life, the Metaverse),
• mirror worlds (Google Earth and Virtual Earth),
• 3D modelling (Blender, Sketchup),
• mapping mashups, GPS,
• Location based Services (LBSs),
• haptics and augmented toys (eg. Wiimote hacks),
• ambient intelligence,
• interactive art installations
• …and all things 3D.

I’m also talking at Irish Signals and Systems Conference in UCD on the 10th June 2009. The title for that one is “Proximal Time-Optimal Control of Flexible Systems made Robust though Feedback” . No robots in that one though.  And finally in Warsaw  at the multibody 2009 conference (29th June – 2nd July 2009).